Please, try to remove any instance of hardcoded HTML into the files for next major version. I think it will please many designers that wish to fully control the HTML in their themes.
And no just HTML as a whole but images extensions as well, like the quick quote ones.
They're trying to minimize template changes for 1.8 so I don't see happening. 2.0 should meet these standards though.
I've complained many times about hard coded HTML. As Alex said though, we're trying to make the 1.8 upgrade as pain free as possible and removing the HTML to the templates would require quite a few edits (and could break pre-existing custom themes).
We'll be trying to eliminate as many hard coded templates as possible but any new templates should use the same variables, so there shouldn't be any destructive changes.
Yes, the thing is that is you don´t consider this for 1.8, we will need to wait years for another version, where template system will be completely different anyway.